Interior exploits national emergency to serve polluters

Late last week, the Interior Department quietly acknowledged it would allow companies to request permission to stop making payments to the U.S. Treasury for oil and gas they extract from public lands. These payments are shared with the states in which production occurs, and their suspension or reduction will have a significantly negative impact on state budgets.

“This is kicking communities while they are down. Political leaders at the Interior Department should be exercising their authority to prepare for the public health crisis, not playing politics for the benefit of well-connected companies,” said Chase Huntley, climate and energy program director for The Wilderness Society.

“Let’s be clear, canceling federal payments from oil companies will have no impact at all on the glut of oil domestically or internationally. It won’t save jobs, but it will hurt communities,” Huntley said. “Interior needs to protect the public and its employees who are managing these lands, and provide direct assistance to all workers who are losing their jobs throughout the West.”

Interior’s move comes weeks into a global pandemic in which governors, mayors and state legislators pleaded with the agency to instead put the Department’s considerable crisis management resources to use on behalf of the nation. The administration has been fond of trumpeting revenues disbursed to states. “The disbursements paid to states and Tribes from energy development revenues go right back to the communities where the energy was produced,” Secretary Bernhardt has said. They did, until now.

For more information on the Trump Administration's efforts to undercut conservation during the COVID pandemic, click here. Contact tony_iallonardo@tws.org with questions.